New machine learning algorithm finds a gene signature characteristic of tumors

How do cancer cells differ from healthy cells? A new machine learning algorithm called "ikarus" knows the answer, reports a team led by MDC bioinformatician Altuna Akalin in the journal Genome Biology. The AI program has found a gene signature characteristic of tumors. When it comes to identifying patterns in mountains of data, human beings are no match for artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, a branch of AI called machine learning is often used to find regularities in data sets – be it for stock market analysis, image and speech recognition, or the classification of cells.